248	MYSELF AND MY FRIENDS
might be Robert Graves, though I fear he has carried
away but a sorry souvenir of us all Perhaps the
kindness which the Hill tried to show him was so gauche
as to be irksome I remember what was perhaps his
last incursion before saying goodbye to all that It
was a dismal day and as the Professor sat in his book
room writing, the door opened and a drenched figure
appeared The rain dripped on the carpet from hat
and coat and trousers It was Robert Graves Out
from Iffley with wife and child and dog, Graves had
climbed Boar's Hill in a one-horsed caravan The
ram descended, the dog turned back, but the old
horse stumbled on and reached the top of the Hill
Graves had come to ask a night's bivouac in our field
"If your horse gets down, it will never get back,"
said the Professor, and Graves departed to outspan
at the top of our steep lane
With so many bright sources of illumination both
constant and intermittent, we never felt the lack
of electric light or gas, and although the local authorities
passed us by, authority lived among us in our distin-
guished residents and visitors Explorers there were and
are among us as well as poets, Sir Arthur Evans and
Campbell Thompson who have discovered, one the
cradle of civilisation in the Mediterranean, the other the
secrets of Nineveh
From the first day of our meeting, I learnt to admire
the remarkable and reseived genius of Sir Arthur
Evans He is known to the world at large as a great
archaeologist He has rediscovered Cretan civilisation
On a casual walk from the Cretan Hills to the sea his
discerning eye will recognise that there lies the great
Cretan port, the harbour of all the world's shipping
in those far-off times Few, however, know what fine
work he has done unobtrusively and almost unre-
gardedly for this our encampment on Boar's Hill
Year by year the boy scouts spend their summer time
in the woods about his house In his grounds he has
erected the most beautiful and most beautifully inscribed